Google Turns to a Steady Old Hand to Fight Antitrust Charges

When the federal government began an antitrust investigation into Google, one of many firm’s high legal professionals, Kent Walker, mentioned the answer was not a attraction offensive. Google simply wanted to clarify how its enterprise functioned.

It was 2009, and the Federal Trade Commission was assessing whether or not Google had rigged expertise markets in its favor. Mr. Walker’s plan labored. The firm agreed to some small enterprise observe modifications in a 2013 settlement and maintained its search engine dominance for one more decade.

Now, Google and its father or mother firm, Alphabet, are dealing with their most important authorized problem. They are making ready to face off subsequent week in federal courtroom in opposition to the Justice Department and a set of states, which declare the tech large illegally abused its monopoly energy to maintain its search engine on high.

The Justice Department has argued that Google illegally used agreements with telephone makers like Apple and Samsung, in addition to web browsers like Mozilla, to be the default search engine for his or her customers, stopping smaller rivals from gaining access to that enterprise.

The courtroom battle — a very powerful antitrust case for the reason that Justice Department took on Microsoft 25 years in the past — strikes on the coronary heart of Alphabet’s $1.7 trillion empire and will strip energy and affect away from the world’s most profitable web firm.

If Google loses and a decide then approves cures, it might ultimately be pressured to restructure indirectly, and it could possibly be hit with huge fines and a prohibition on search distribution offers. That would translate to fewer customers, deflated income and maybe even limits on how Google is ready to innovate with new applied sciences like synthetic intelligence.

To fend off the regulators’ claims, Google must persuade Judge Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that Google’s many years of dominance are as a result of its superior product, not abusive ways.

The firm is relying on Mr. Walker, 62, as soon as once more. Since being employed as Google’s basic counsel in 2006, Mr. Walker has been an architect of the corporate’s authorized technique, overseeing a victory in a protracted courtroom showdown with rival Oracle and a case that would have held Google responsible for customers’ social media posts. Both authorized fights went to the Supreme Court.

That Mr. Walker is defending an trade large in opposition to the monopoly claims of regulators is an odd turnabout in his lengthy profession. He grew up in Palo Alto, Calif., within the coronary heart of Silicon Valley, and graduated from Harvard and Stanford Law School. Starting in 1990, he spent 5 adolescence on the Justice Department, the place he labored on the prosecution of Kevin Mitnick, as soon as probably the most needed hacker within the nation.

In 1997, Mr. Walker started a pivotal four-year tenure on the pioneering web firm Netscape as deputy basic counsel, bringing him into the landmark antitrust proceedings in opposition to Microsoft. The Windows firm was accused of bundling its merchandise collectively to snuff out different internet browsers, together with Netscape’s Navigator.

In a current interview, Mr. Walker argued that he’s nonetheless preventing for a similar factor — that customers ought to have quick access to the companies they like probably the most. He mentioned the case in societal phrases, framing it as a battle over how a lot innovation is permissible underneath American antitrust legislation and a battle that can have “important implications for the tech sector.”

Mr. Walker has dozens of in-house legal professionals and a whole bunch of different staff serving to on the antitrust case, he mentioned. Google has additionally employed three legislation companies to take the lead on the litigation.

John E. Schmidtlein, an skilled antitrust lawyer and a accomplice on the legislation agency Williams & Connolly, will lead Google’s courtroom protection. Wendy W.H. Waszmer, a accomplice at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, may also argue for Google in courtroom. They can have three weeks to make their case after the Justice Department and attorneys basic from 35 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam make theirs.

The firm contends that it faces stiff competitors from a lot of various companies the place shoppers can discover merchandise and data on-line, together with Amazon and TikTookay.

Google additionally argues that its partnerships with corporations like Apple and Samsung are lawful and that customers can change their default search engine in 5 or fewer steps on these telephones. The firm may also level out that when customers open a Safari browser on an iPhone, they’ll see fast hyperlinks to quite a lot of different companies moreover Google, together with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and Wikipedia.

The search large may also search to undermine the premise of the Justice Department’s go well with, claiming that the federal government has used antitrust legislation in a novel approach to punish the corporate due to its recognition.

“American law should be about promoting benefits for consumers: that’s lower price, that’s more innovation, that’s more opportunity,” Mr. Walker mentioned. “If we move away from that and make it harder for companies to provide great goods and services for consumers, that’s going to be bad for everyone.”

Gregory Rosston, Stanford’s public coverage program director, mentioned each side would argue about whether or not the search market can be extra aggressive if Google didn’t have default-search agreements.

“Google is going to argue Apple had no interest in developing a search engine,” Dr. Rosston mentioned. “They do search in Siri and other things, but they’re not very good at it. The government is going to say, well, they could have done it or they could have done a deal with Bing or some other start-up search engine, and maybe people would have done more searches with those.”

“Generally, antitrust laws take a dim view of agreements between competitors to divide up or not enter a market,” he added.

For practically twenty years, Google executives have relied on Mr. Walker to guard the corporate from high-stakes litigation. But at occasions, Mr. Walker has additionally needed to merely clarify how the authorized system works. Harry Litman, a pal and former Justice Department colleague of Mr. Walker, recounted a narrative he shared at a reunion for U.S. attorneys a number of years in the past.

Mr. Walker was in a gathering with Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, discussing a spate of lawsuits around the globe, Mr. Litman mentioned. One of the co-founders requested: Why can’t we have now a single decide in each nation who would rise up to hurry on the web and oversee lawsuits in opposition to us?

Mr. Walker “was chuckling about his job, having to explain to these extremely rational people why the law doesn’t always work in such a rational way,” Mr. Litman mentioned.

Despite what colleagues and mates describe as Mr. Walker’s Boy Scout persona, his group will be identified for hardball ways, authorized opponents say. David Boies, who efficiently prosecuted Microsoft for the Justice Department greater than 20 years in the past, mentioned Google failed to supply paperwork, denied all legal responsibility and fought for each inch.

Mr. Boies is suing Google in two civil circumstances, together with one which accuses the corporate of monitoring customers with out their data whereas in its internet browser’s Incognito mode. He mentioned he had gotten sanctions in opposition to Google twice, together with a million-dollar penalty, for failing to ship related proof.

“They hold the ground until it breaks,” he mentioned. “They don’t bend.”